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The seminar module offers a more extensive and more thorough analysis of a topic from within political science. To this end, the seminar module provides an overview and a critical discussion of the literature and the issues relevant for the topic of the seminar.
The objectives for this module are:
Comprehensive insight in Europeanization and the developments in new institutional theories
Analytical skills to apply theories on empirical material through case studies and comparative methods.
2004 was the year of the hitherto most extensive expansion of the European Union. Some six years later, and after a deep political crisis, a new Treaty - the Lisbon Treaty by and large replicating the rejected Constitutional Treaty - was successfully ratified in all Member States, in some Member States, however, with fierce political struggle. How does the European Union membership effect politics and institutional developments within the individual Member States? Do we witness a more homogeneous EU or are different outcomes more likely? How may EU institutions respond to a more differentiated EU? And may pressure towards harmonization fuel EU scepticism?
The theoretical basis for answering this question is new institutionalism which covers the three basic insights generated by rational choice institutionalism, historical institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, as well as the recent development of a fourth branch, the ideational institutionalism. The empiricism will concentrate on the new Central and East European Members. Arguing that due to systematic break down of the economic and political order around 1990, these countries constitute an empirical laboratory when it comes to analysing the impact of EU institutions and policies on Member States. However, textual examples will be drawn from the EU-15 countries when appropriate in order to demonstrate theoretical and/or methodological points.
Throughout the seminar you will enhance your theoretical insight in the new institutionalisms, your ability to relate these theories to political processes and change, as well as hands on use of case studies and comparative methods. The form of examination is a 7-day assignment. You shall here demonstrate - on an unknown case-material - the achieved skills by relating theory to empiricism in a methodologically argued way.
Comparative Politics/Public Policy
Of the nine seminars the student has to pass as part of the MA degree, at least six seminar modules have to be in political science.
Karin Hilmer Pedersen
The assessment method is 7-days home assignment.
External examiner/Graded marking.
The seminar module requires active participation of students. At the beginning of the seminar module the lecturer and the students agree on specific "activity requirements" that the students have to fulfill.
The seminar is based upon active participation of students in the form of smaller written assignments, oral presentations and group work throughout the seminar i.e. approximately 14 teaching weeks.
The module compendium consists of about 1,200 pages.
Campbell, John L. (1988). "Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy", Theory and Society, 27, 3, pp. 377-409.
Grabbe, Heather (2001). "How does Europeanization affect CEE governance? Conditionality, diffusion and diversity" Journal of European Public Policy , vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 1013-1031. (19)
Hall, Peter A. & Rosemary C. R. Taylor (1996). "Political Science and the Three New institutionalisms'", Political Studies, pp. 936-957.
Pridham, Geoffrey (2002). "EU Enlargement and Consolidating Democracy in Post-communist States - Formality and Reality" Journal of Common Market Studies , vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 953-973. (21)
Radaelli, Claudio (2003). "The Europeanization of Public Policy" pp. 27-56 in Kevin Featherstone & Claudio M. Radaelli, The Politics of Europeanization Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Schimmelfennig, Frank and Ulrich Sedelmeier (eds), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe , Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London.
Schmidt, Vivien A. (2010), "Taking ideas and discourse seriously: explaining change through discursive institutionalism as the fourth ‘new institutionalism'", European Political Science Review , vol. 2; 1, pp. 1-25
Sedelmeier, Ulrich (2008), "After Conditionality: post-accession compliance with EU law in East Central Europe", Journal of European Public Policy , vol, 15, no. 6, pp. 806-825.
Versluis, Esther (2007), "Even Rules, Uneven Practices: Opening the ‘Black Box' of EU Law in Action" West European Politics , vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 50-67.
